To part or not to part?

zoolew

Member
I am looking to sell one of my bikes right now, but am in a bit of a pickle. I cannot decide whether or not I want to part the bike or not. I know that when you part the bike you can usually make more money, but it is a hell of a lot more work than selling it as a whole and when sold on ebay the listing fees can really add up. I just want to get an opinion from someone who has parted out a bike before and whether it was worth it or not.

Thanks- Joe
 

hondaman

Active Member
It is a shame to part out a bike if it is almost all there to begin with. Almost a sin to many people. If you are bound and determined to part it out on E-bay do what most of those sellers do. Jack up the shipping costs twice to three times as much as what they really are ,to cover the E-bay expenses. You can tell I am a big fan of E-bay, now can't you.
 

hornetgod

Well-Known Member
I do see a lot of inflated shipping and handling costs on Ebay listings. Over charging on shipping drives away some bidders including myself.
 

zoolew

Member
I have been driven away by a couple of items on feebay for parts that cost less than the shipping myself. I would like to keep the bike together because I also agree with idea of keeping a bike completely as it came from honda. I think I am going to keep the bike together as a whole (even though feebay charges a $60 flat fee for motorcycles). Parting the bike out isnt just a no-no in my book, but the time and effort that would need to go into it almost outweighs the cost gain.
 

supchaka

Member
Not only do you have the labor involved with taking it apart, then comes taking photos of all the items, getting average prices per item so you know what to expect and then creating all of those auctions to boot!
 

69ST

Well-Known Member
True enough, some sellers do try to milk S&H charges. That repels some buyers, so does the "paypal only" requirement. It's even more common for the seller to get eaten alive with ebay triple-dipping & actual shipping costs. $20 is outrageous to ship a brake pedal, $65 very reasonable for a properly-packaged engine, for examples. Best to consider each transaction individually, on it's own merits. There's no such thing as free shipping...unless you can walk to the seller's location, of course.

At the end of the day, it's up to the seller to do the math. The cheapest way to ship an entire bike is in multiple cartons, after discarding anything that is not reusable. It's still a fair amount of labor to do the teardown & packaging, but shipping cost is usually about half the cost to ship a complete, crated, bike. Crating a bike is no vacation, either and it can be a tricky proposition, with a huge cost range.

If you can find a buyer via CL, it's probably going to be the most efficient venue. Ebay offers a vastly larger audience, and charges mightily for it.
 

Anderz

Member
Keep it together.

My gold KO project 3 was bought as a parts bike. Several easy shipping parts allready gone but the rest were on ebay from june 2010 to february 2011 along with a 1972 k1 which is finally sold and a 1982 bike with a '72 front fork and hardly anything else. The only reason for buying the gold KO were mostly the location and wanting a KO to rebuild. You do not get alot of buyers into rebuilding a parts bike.
 
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